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Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. In its broadest sense, creationism includes a continuum of religious views, which vary in their acceptance or rejection of scientific explanations such as evolution that describe the origin and development of natural phenomena.
Creation science or scientific creationism is a pseudoscientific form of Young Earth creationism which claims to offer scientific arguments for certain literalist and inerrantist interpretations of the Bible. It is often presented without overt faith-based language, but instead relies on reinterpreting scientific results to argue that various myths in the Book of Genesis and other select biblical passages are scientifically valid. The most commonly advanced ideas of creation science include special creation based on the Genesis creation narrative and flood geology based on the Genesis flood narrative. Creationists also claim they can disprove or reexplain a variety of scientific facts, theories and paradigms of geology, cosmology, biological evolution, archaeology, history, and linguistics using creation science. Creation science was foundational to intelligent design.
William Albert Dembski is an American mathematician, philosopher and theologian. He was a proponent of intelligent design (ID) pseudoscience, specifically the concept of specified complexity, and was a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture (CSC). On September 23, 2016, he officially retired from intelligent design, resigning all his "formal associations with the ID community, including [his] Discovery Institute fellowship of 20 years". A February 2021 interview in the CSC's blog Evolution News announced "his return to the intelligent design arena".
Icons of Evolution is a book by Jonathan Wells, an advocate of the pseudoscientific intelligent design argument for the existence of God and fellow of the Discovery Institute, in which Wells criticizes the paradigm of evolution by attacking how it is taught. The book includes a 2002 video companion. In 2000, Wells summarized the book's contents in an article in the American Spectator. Several of the scientists whose work is sourced in the book have written rebuttals to Wells, stating that they were quoted out of context, that their work has been misrepresented, or that it does not imply Wells's conclusions.
John Corrigan "Jonathan" Wells is an American theologian and advocate of the pseudoscientific argument of intelligent design. Wells joined the Unification Church in 1974, and subsequently wrote that the teachings of its founder Sun Myung Moon, his own studies at the Unification Theological Seminary and his prayers convinced him to devote his life to "destroying Darwinism." The term Darwinism is often used by intelligent design proponents and other creationists to refer to the scientific consensus on evolution. He gained a PhD in religious studies at Yale University in 1986, then became Director of the Unification Church's inter-religious outreach organization in New York City. In 1989, he studied at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a PhD in molecular and cellular biology in 1994. He became a member of several scientific associations and has published in academic journals.
Recurring cultural, political, and theological rejection of evolution by religious groups exists regarding the origins of the Earth, of humanity, and of other life. In accordance with creationism, species were once widely believed to be fixed products of divine creation, but since the mid-19th century, evolution by natural selection has been established by the scientific community as an empirical scientific fact.
The status of creation and evolution in public education has been the subject of substantial debate and conflict in legal, political, and religious circles. Globally, there are a wide variety of views on the topic. Most western countries have legislation that mandates only evolutionary biology is to be taught in the appropriate scientific syllabuses.
The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) is a creationist apologetics institute in Dallas, Texas, that specializes in media promotion of pseudoscientific creation science and interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative as a historical event. The ICR adopts the Bible as an inerrant and literal documentary of scientific and historical fact as well as religious and moral truths, and espouses a Young Earth creationist worldview. It rejects evolutionary biology, which it views as a corrupting moral and social influence and threat to religious belief. The ICR was formed by Henry M. Morris in 1972 following an organizational split with the Creation Science Research Center (CSRC).
Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins is a controversial 1989 school-level supplementary textbook written by Percival Davis and Dean H. Kenyon, edited by Charles Thaxton and published by the Texas-based Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE). The textbook endorses the pseudoscientific concept of intelligent design – the argument that life shows evidence of being designed by an intelligent agent which is not named specifically in the book, although proponents understand that it refers to the Christian God. The overview chapter was written by young Earth creationist Nancy Pearcey. They present various polemical arguments against the scientific theory of evolution. Before publication, early drafts used cognates of "creationist". After the Edwards v. Aguillard Supreme Court ruling that creationism is religion and not science, these were changed to refer to "intelligent design". The second edition published in 1993 included a contribution written by Michael Behe.
Carl Edward Baugh is an American young Earth creationist. Baugh has claimed to have discovered human footprints alongside non-avian dinosaur footprints near the Paluxy River in Texas. Baugh promoted creationism as the former host of the Creation in the 21st Century TV program on the Trinity Broadcasting Network.
This timeline of intelligent design outlines the major events in the development of intelligent design as presented and promoted by the intelligent design movement.
John Donald "Don" McLeroy is a dentist in Bryan, Texas, and a Republican former member of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE). The SBOE establishes policy for the state public school system. McLeroy, who represented SBOE District 9, served on the board from 1998 until 2011. He was appointed in 2007 as SBOE chairman by Governor Rick Perry. The term ended in February 2009.
Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism is a controversial biology textbook written by a group of intelligent design supporters and published in 2007. Its promoters describe it as aimed at helping educators and students to discuss "the controversial aspects of evolutionary theory that are discussed openly in scientific books and journals but which are not widely reported in textbooks." As one of the Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns to "teach the controversy" its evident purpose is to provide a "lawsuit-proof" way of attacking evolution and promoting pseudoscientific creationism without being explicit.
Leonard Brand is a Seventh-day Adventist creationist, biologist, paleontologist, and author. He is a professor and past chair of Loma Linda University Department of Earth and Biological Sciences.
Christina Castillo Comer is the former Director of Science in the curriculum division of the Texas Education Agency (TEA). Comer spent nine years as the Director of Science until she resigned on November 7, 2007. Comer's resignation has sparked controversy about agency politics and the debate to teach evolution in public schools versus creationism or intelligent design.
Texas Citizens for Science (TCS) is a Texas-based advocacy group that works to protect the accuracy and reliability of science education in Texas. Its main activity is to oppose organized creationism in Texas, especially at the Texas State Board of Education, Texas Education Agency, Texas Legislature, and Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
The Creation Evidence Museum of Texas, originally Creation Evidences Museum, is a creationist museum in Glen Rose in Somervell County in central Texas, United States. Founded in 1984 by Carl Baugh for the purpose of researching and displaying exhibits that support creationism, it portrays the Earth as six thousand years old and humans coexisting with dinosaurs, disputing that the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old and dinosaurs became extinct 65.5 million years before human beings arose.
"Strengths and weaknesses of evolution" is a controversial phrase that has been proposed for public school science curricula. Those proposing the phrase, such as the chairman of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE), Don McLeroy, purport that there are weaknesses in the theory of evolution and in the evidence that life has evolved that should be taught for a balanced treatment of the subject of evolution. The scientific community rejects that any substantive weaknesses exist in the scientific theory, or in the data that it explains, and views the examples that have been given in support of the phrasing as being without merit and long refuted.
In American schools, the Genesis creation narrative was generally taught as the origin of the universe and of life until Darwin's scientific theories became widely accepted. While there was some immediate backlash, organized opposition did not get underway until the Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy broke out following World War I; several states passed laws banning the teaching of evolution while others debated them but did not pass them. The Scopes Trial was the result of a challenge to the law in Tennessee. Scopes lost his case, and further U.S. states passed laws banning the teaching of evolution.
This article presents an overview of creationism by country.
References
- ↑ "New Eyes on Texas". Texas Observer. November 28, 2008. Retrieved December 26, 2008.
- ↑ Williams, Sally (July 4, 2007). "The God curriculum". London: The Telegraph . Retrieved December 26, 2008.[ dead link ]
- ↑ "Emotions rage at book hearing Dozens testify on what to say about". San Antonio Express-News. September 11, 2003. Retrieved December 26, 2008.
- ↑ www.BadGeology.com
- 1 2 "Academic". badgeology.com. 2008. Archived from the original on February 19, 2012. Retrieved December 26, 2008.
- ↑ "Access and Equity Committee". University of Texas. 2008. Archived from the original on February 13, 2014. Retrieved December 26, 2008.
- ↑ "EVOLUTION, 'CONTRARY' THEORIES OK'd FOR TEXTS". Dallas Morning News. March 11, 1989. Retrieved December 26, 2008.
- ↑ "Biology texts are criticized For 1st time, books address evolution". Dallas Morning News. July 11, 1990. Retrieved December 26, 2008.
- ↑ Debbie Graves (March 11, 1989). "Education board gave in to creationists, scientist charges". Austin American-Statesman . Retrieved December 26, 2008.
- ↑ Steven Schafersman (2008). "Education board gave in to creationists, scientist charges". Houston Chronicle. Archived from the original on August 5, 2011. Retrieved December 26, 2008.